


Mutability

by fayzalmoonbeam



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 15:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3856390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayzalmoonbeam/pseuds/fayzalmoonbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before the General Election, Nick contemplates all that has gone before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutability

Mutability

 

Nick knows he shouldn’t be out here; his security team think he’s still in a meeting with his agent, but he can’t help it. This time tomorrow, it will all be over. The May air is unseasonably chilly; he shivers in his shirtsleeves, and curses the fact he’s left his jacket slung over the chair in his office. But he had to come; he had to be here one more time.

 

The bench is cold, too.

 

‘I miss you,’ he says to the air. He knows David’s long gone; Sam was expecting him back in Witney for dinner tonight, and Nick is aware that she’ll be doing her best to soothe him on this momentous evening. She knew all along, of course, about them. They wouldn’t have been doing what they’ve done for nearly five years without her and Miriam’s say so. The memories are so clear, he can almost taste them. The sunshine and the scent of the roses as they gave their first joint press conference; and later, the gradual, dawning certainty that they were falling for each other.

 

Nick remembers the first time they’d invaded each other’s space. It was late; the summer had been long, and although parliament was in recess, political life still went on. David had asked him to come in, on a late August afternoon. When Nick had got to Downing Street, David had opened the door to the flat himself. He’d been dressed in well-fitted jeans and a t-shirt, over which was slung a dark blue checked shirt, rolled to the elbows.  Nick had noted, with amusement and a stab of something he later recognised as desire, the feet; blue socked, bereft of shoes. That surprised him. Seemed incongruous, somehow, in such a venerable residence, and for a man who held such a venerable office.

 

David had leaned across to find a section in the document Nick held, and their fingers had brushed. Nick was sure he hadn’t been the only one to feel the shock. David had stuttered, mid sentence, and suddenly there hadn’t been enough air in the room. Nick had laughed nervously, trying to break the tension. For a second they had breathed together and both had thought of dark, warm, forbidden things.

 

Weeks had passed, and Parliament was sitting again.  It had been so gradual, this dawning realisation, that he couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had happened. Everything blurred. He still remembered the stomach churning anxiety that had turned to desire when they’d been alone; David’s scent, his touch, that first hesitant meeting of mouths. And then the inevitable couplings. The irony was that their wives knew before they did of its inevitability. And they positively encouraged it.

 

Nick feels the memories washing over him so strongly he can taste them; taste _him._ His gaze rests on the grass, on the tattered petals of a flower that has long since had its day. The symbolism isn’t lost on him. Nick swallows; once, twice. Blinks hard. Knows it’s pathetic to feel this way. Knows David’s probably not giving him another thought. But then, David was always better at compartmentalising his emotions; on some subjects, at least.

Nick doesn’t know what the future will hold after tomorrow. In his darker moments, he contemplates the worst; loss of his seat, loss of his party, loss of what little influence he had. But the loss of David, the man he _wasn’t supposed to fall in love with_ ; that’s his real fear.

 

From a far corner of the Rose Garden, David watches as Nick’s head falls into his hands, viewing those hands with thirsty envy as Nick’s wrists are revealed and those long fingers try to stem the inevitable flow of emotions. He knows he can’t go to him; he also knows he can’t not. ‘I miss you too,’ he whispers to the cold night air. Face haunted in the rising moonlight, he turns away.

 

 


End file.
